I won't say watching youth baseball this past weekend put me over the edge, it just reaffirmed what I already knew: Youth sports in general has gotten out of control and it's the majority of adults to blame.
We all know that today, kids are becoming more competitive at a younger age in every sport. Some children have already stopped trying different sports and are in a hurry to specialize.
Travel teams, competitive teams, camps and training facilities are all the rage. It is big money and an even bigger time commitment. I know a number of families from Winnemucca that travel every week to play volleyball, basketball, baseball, soccer or softball.
Do we really need to have kids stop playing other sports before they are 10? Are we so locked into our children being the next Peyton Manning, LeBron James or Mike Trout? The odds of that happening, parents, are pretty slim to none. Here are a couple of numbers:
One in 6,000 high school football players will make it to the NFL and 2.5 out of 10,000 will play in the NBA. Were you not that good in your day that you have to live it out through your son or daughter? The expectations of adults are mind blowing.
Is it all about winning? Are you really the bigger person for yelling and putting down a child that is 10 years old? Is that accomplishing anything, besides making yourself look like you know what? It seems like it is all about playing time and why my kid isn't playing and why someone else is. The response you will get from the coach is here is your money back; goodbye and you were never promised anything.
It has come to the point with the 'win at all costs' mentality. It's one thing if a coach has a player that is better than the rest of the team. Of course that player will be more involved. That goes for every level of every sport because all other players will benefit from a play being run correctly and run well. However, it is a completely different story when you stack one team of the good players and put the bench-warmers all on the other teams.
Also, is there a need for all-star teams at such a young age? What is the point? We are telling kids from the beginning that they are not good enough to play on the all stars. Trust me, the kids know when they are on a stacked/non-stacked team. You know who is good around you. And guess what, sometimes those kids who would have been on the non-stacked team end up being one of the best players when high school rolls around. You can't tell at that age who will and will not be a great athlete.
You see it now where kids are quitting because of the pressure that is being put on them. It is a sad sight in our society when kids don't want to play because it's not fun.
We are at the point where you get a trophy and you get a trophy for just playing. We don't keep score because someone will be upset about losing. Trust me the kids know what the score is all the time.
We are also at the point of letting kids play up a level. Why? That is setting up the child for failure. Here is an idea, keep him or her at their age level and build teams up from scratch. The best thing in the world to do is keep a group together and it works at the high school level. Currently, there is a strong group of young ladies in Winnemucca from the seventh grade level to the current junior class that is very strong to say the least. Some will move and others will go in different directions. But the best thing to do is keep those groups together as they get older.
In Winnemucca, you will see high school players officiate baseball, softball or baseball games. Remember coaches and parents - they are kids too. They are student-athletes that go to school and practice afterward. They take time out of their night or day to umpire or referee. The thing is the younger kids look up to the high schoolers as their heroes. So the next time you decide to yell at one one them for a call they did or did not make, think twice about it before you say something to them. How about getting off your rear end and doing what they do? I thought so.
Also, do we need to keep kids at the ballpark until 9:30 p.m. on school nights? The pace of play for some games are ridiculously slow and for no reason. How about starting your game when you are supposed to?
Three out of four American families with school-aged children have at least one playing an organized sport - a total of about 45 million kids.
By age 15, as many as 80 percent of these youngsters have quit, according to the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine. One reason is the gap between the child's desire to have fun and the misguided notion among some adults that their kids' games are a miniature version of grown-up competitions, where the goal is to win.
One percent of high school athletes will get a Division I scholarship, but on average the amount is far below the money families spend on developing their little star.
Winnemucca Publishing sports editor Tony Erquiaga can be reached at t.erquiaga@winnemuccapublishing.net.[[In-content Ad]]
